I don't sit on a hay bale and paint polka dots on my face in order to make the music palatable.

As a distinct genre of music, bluegrass hasn't
been around all that long. That old-timey sound had its start with the
legendary Bill Monroe in the 1930s, deep in the rural regions of Appalachia.

Characterized by plucked, stringed instruments paired
with close, almost dissonant vocal harmonies, bluegrass has been subjected to
influences from other genres and over time. It has been shaped by the musicians
who have aligned themselves with this captivating, homespun music.

Claire Lynch and her band are a natural outgrowth
of this process. Proponents of what's known as post-modern bluegrass, this
outstanding performer visits Harrisburg with her band this weekend for what's
being billed as a pre-Super Bowl concert.

Lynch was in Nashville last week when I talked to
her by phone. She took a break from recording a holiday CD with her band in her
home studio, planning to leave the next day for the tour that includes her
concert in Harrisburg.

She also won a USA Walker Fellowship Award in
2012. The fellowship carries with it a $50,000 prize for innovation and
influence in her field. Dolly Parton, according to Lynch's website, credits her
with "one of the sweetest, purest, and best lead voices in the music business
today."

Claire Lynch

You wouldn't guess Lynch's lofty stature by
talking to her. She was friendly and open, yet articulate and knowledgeable. I
had the feeling that I was talking to both a great musician and a friend.

"I ain't no spring chicken," she laughed, when I
clumsily tried to find out how long she's been performing. She started in her
late teens and has been involved in music for over 40 years as a songwriter,
singer and guitarist.

She's known for creating a personal, unique sound
while honoring the first wave of bluegrass musicians, people like Monroe and
the Flatt and Scruggs duo I first admired in the 60s, during the height of the
folk music era.

The other major influence is rock and roll. "I
didn't grow up on farms and in the mountains," she said. She was an avid
listener to Jimi Hendrix and Joni Mitchell, and she continues to infuse pop
elements into her style of bluegrass.

"It wasn't easy for me," she said. "Being female
was a huge issue. Bluegrass was good ol' boys music. Women stayed back at the
camper and cooked" while their men folk performed.

Through the 1950s, a female performer had to be
chaperoned on stage; otherwise, she'd be dismissed as "a hussy," Lynch
explained.

Lynch's timing was good, and her manner of dealing
with gender bias was simple. She ignored it. "I was an innocent," she said. "I
was sweet and never rude," but she just went right ahead and did what she
wanted to do.

"For some people, bluegrass is an acquired taste,"
she continued. "It's crude, raw. Some think it's a kind of mountain hollering.
It's not Barbra Streisand."

Audience members sometimes come up to Lynch after
a concert and say, "I don't really like bluegrass, but I like you."

"We have a lot of fun," she said. The band's
bassist, Mark Schatz, has been known to break out into some Appalachian clog
dancing. Lynch promises "virtuosic playing and elegant picking."

"We are entertainers in a service business," she
said. "We want people to walk out of our concerts and feel elated, different,"
changed by the experience.

"We're also ambassadors for the art form. I don't
sit on a hay bale and paint polka dots on my face in order to make the music
palatable. We haven't lost our bluegrass edge."

"We have enough respect for the tradition that we
can ride the line between what's come before and what has evolved," she said.

It's Lynch's interpretation of bluegrass,
coalescing tradition with creativity, that you can hear when her band comes to
Harrisburg.